


and wrought his image

by viceandvirtue



Series: prompt collection [8]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Pre-Romance Dawn, Rayleigh needs a hug, So does Ace, hurt...a whole lot of hurt, introspective, not a whole bunch of comfort here, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceandvirtue/pseuds/viceandvirtue
Summary: Perhaps if the world had been different, but it wasn’t.





	and wrought his image

Perhaps Shanks should feel something more like indignation for his captain - the one that had taken a scrappy street rat like Shanks and given him something worth living life for.

But they had all known, and really, Roger had been expecting this at some point. Either his illness would kill him or the Marines would. And Roger was at the top, the only way to go was down.

So Shanks felt more resigned than anything else. Sad to see his captain go, but there was a lot less grief. Just acceptance.

Something about being a street urchin made the stages of grief just skip over him, skip straight over denial and delusion and grief, straight to acceptance. People died. It happened. He could be sad about it for a little while, may mourn for a moment, but that was all he could allow himself. The world didn’t stop just because one more person ended up in the ground.

The world may have held its breath as Roger’s head hit the platform deck but it kept going after the crowd had dispersed.

He hadn’t known about Roger’s son though, but Rayleigh had.

Rayleigh grieved more than Shanks did, and as the years past and his hair grew out and faded from blond to silver it may have appeared that he had moved past his grief - had accepted the fate of his captain and his closest friend, but he hadn’t.

And he wished that his captain hadn’t hidden away his son, that Rayleigh could have taught him all the wonderful things about his father that the world chose to ridicule and ignore.

He had wanted the boy to grow up differently.

But Rayleigh understood why, after all, even if the past wasn’t one that they had ever talked about even to each other.

He had wished a different fate for young Ace, who would take his mother’s name and hide in shame the legacy of his father. He had wished a different fate for Luffy, a bright child with the sunshine in his smile and a family history fraught with malcontent.

If the world had been different perhaps, but it wasn’t.

And so Rayleigh was more than happy to keep Roger’s private last words close to him and wrought his image upon his soul day in and day out, as he strived to be better than the first mate who hadn’t gone down with his ship when the captain had hit rock bottom of Davy Jones’ Locker.

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo hullo. Welcome back to another wotd. Let me know what you think in the comments below why don’t ya? And as usual my tumblr is always open @skyefox-blue. Feel free to shoot me a message.


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